Instead of hiring top talent to handle a problem, companies turn it over to the masses.

The term was coined by journalist Jeff Howe in 2006. Back then it was a relatively unknown phenomenon.

But in recent years crowdsourcing has become downright trendy. Major brands like PepsiCo and Toyota have embraced the technique.

Without careful control and planning, however, crowdsourcing can lead to disaster. We've chronicled a few of those unhappy accidents in the past, you can check them out here.

"I still think it can be an incredibly effective way for a company to cut costs or generate ideas," says Howe. "But right now, I think it would serve folks well to approach crowdsourcing with a little more skepticism."

With that in mind, we spoke with several experts, academics and business leader who laid out the crowdsourcing do's and dont's they've collected over the years.

Ask people who know nothing about what your're trying to do

People with experience outside your particular field can actually be the best at solving certain problems.

Karim Lakhani, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, studied the crowdsourced problem solving of InnoCentive. “The strength of a network like InnoCentive’s is exactly the diversity of intellectual background,” says Lakhani. “We actually found the odds of a solver’s success increased in fields in which they had no formal expertise,”

Don't ask consumers to brainstorm about business products, and vice versa

"How open to participation is the brand? Or, to flip the question, how much control of communications does the brand need?" asks James Sherrett, founder and CEO of Ad Hack, which uses crowdsourcing techniques to match clients with creative talent.

"Many brands are consumer-focused and benefit from a totally open creative process. Other brands are business-to-business or subject to regulatory requirements and need a different approach. Match the process to the brand and you’re starting on the right foot."

Don't get analysis paralysis

Focus on the numbers that will matter to your objectives, not the easy ones to measure, says Ad Hack's James Sherrett.

"For instance, are you focused on the number of participants or on the quality of their participation? Too often we see crowdsourcing projects measured on how many submissions they received rather than the quality of the work."

Set clear boundaries for participation -- or you'll get hijacked

President Obama had the opposite experience during his first ever "digital town hall". Marijuana legalization advocates turned up in force, a public embarrassment for the White House. Without strong boundaries, it was impossible to control the conversation.

Choose the right incentives

It's important to learn what inspires people to participate. "The crowd is not a faceless monolith. It's real people with motivations and fears," says Ad Hack's Sherrett.

To get the best work you've got to understand what your community wants. Are they after money, recognition or the chance at impress their peers? Find what motivates them and you'll get better results.

Everyone doesn't have to agree

Clay Shirky, a technology writer and professor at NYU, says that a crowd doesn't have to agree to be useful.

“If you want to know where new interesting useful ideas are going to come from, don’t look at crowds and don’t look at individuals, look at small groups of smart people arguing with each other," he told a lecture audience in London.

Understand influencers

The recent Old Spice campaign used crowdsourced content to become a viral hit. But it also paid careful attention to powerful influencers.

"We're looking at who's written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content," said the campaign's director, Ian Tate. It was the mix of celebrity and obscurity that made the campaign succeed.

You still need a leader

A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short.